Is the AI Slowdown Over? OpenAI and Anthropic Just Launched New Models

Anthropic and OpenAI launched new artificial intelligence (AI) models less than two hours apart on Tuesday. Both releases landed only 10 days after their chief executives publicly pushed for an AI slowdown.

This time, however, instead of pushing past their most powerful models, both cut prices instead, and Elon Musk who had also backed the AI slowdown initiative, congratulated Anthropic.

Congrats!— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 22, 2026 Anthropic Ships Opus 5.5 After Its AI Slowdown Call Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 at 16:31 UTC. The company said the model matches its Claude Fable 5.1 on most tasks and costs 40% less to run than Opus 5.

Introducing Claude Opus 5.5, the first model in our new Claude 5.5 family.It performs at the level of Claude Fable 5.1 for most tasks, and costs 40% less to run than Opus 5.